[00:00] I honestly never thought I would be doing this, but this is Ray. In about 10 seconds, he's going to inject what he thinks is real steroids into his body.
[00:12] That's because one month earlier, Ray sent me this DM, asking me to help him hop on a juice. But when I asked him about his goal physique, You look good without your shirt on, cute, anatoli, guys like that, you know? I don't want to be like crazy, I haven't been able to really achieve it, actually.
[00:27] But I've never taken steroids, nor would I recommend them. And I genuinely believe I can help Ray get to his goal without them. So, for the next 100 days, I'm giving him fake steroids. My goal is to get him to resolve so good that when I tell him at the end, he doesn't punch me in the face.
[00:43] And more importantly, he no longer considers hopping on the juice. But for any of this to work, I first have to convince him it's real. Hey, what's up, man? What's up? Nice to see you. Ray's downstairs right now, and he's about to sign the waiver.
[00:57] but for legal reasons on page two we had to add a clause that literally tells him that he's taking a placebo and if he ends up reading that then the experiment is over before he started sorry
[01:10] sorry he flipped over he's on his feet nobody needs these they're hanging in the back in the axi track race progress there's three tools we're using first are dexa scans to measure
[01:26] muscle gain and fat loss, starting on day 1 and hopefully again on day 50 and day 100. That is assuming he doesn't catch on to what we're doing. Second is blood work, which I've booked to measure race testosterone levels on day 1
[01:38] and hopefully again on day 100. But for our final and most important test, we also gotta measure your chest piece. Oh my chest piece. Sorry man. I thought you meant you were talking about my chest piece.
[01:52] Okay, rather than measuring his testes, we're assessing his day one strength on bench, squat, and pull-up. Where he is already at 16 reps. That's good, man. You got a lot of power.
[02:04] Which again makes me wonder why he's so convinced that he needs steroids to reach his goal. Dude, you have great thighs, man. You look good. I don't know what looks better than this. Like, if I have a shirt on, I feel like I don't look like somebody that works out.
[02:17] I mean, I'm the same way. If I put a t-shirt, you would never guess that I'm a fitness YouTuber. In fact, even Ray's dream physique, Anatoly, is only able to prank people in the gym because in baggy clothes, people can't tell how jacked he is.
[02:33] But despite Ray constantly telling me he needs to get bigger, I'm not convinced he fully understands the risks of taking steroids. I do want it, so hopefully that doesn't go away. It could. Yeah. That's like a real risk that you're signing up for.
[02:47] Right. Yeah, I hope. Yeah, I would go. I guess like if you're somebody who really wants kids, yet this is something that could potentially ruin that, what actually makes it worth it?
[03:00] Well, I mean it's sort of like that. It's a little hard, but... I don't know, just want to get my body better. With Ray already starting to hesitate, it was time for the moment of truth.
[03:12] I honestly never thought I would be doing this, but... Okay, well this is just for show, this is just for show.
[03:26] When you're starting, it's actually much safer to use oils. Since I don't want Ray harming himself with an actual needle, the plan is we're going to fill each capsule with some flour. That is like a go-to placebo.
[03:39] The protocol is you're going to take one pill every other day and then after the 30 days, we're going to increase the dose to one pill every single day so that we don't go like zero to 100. Don't worry, I did check with Ray about allergies beforehand.
[03:53] Okay. Sorry, red pills? Never knew there was oral test, alright? So, this is it.
[04:05] That's it. No more natty. Natty Card is gone, my friend. But I'm not in the clear yet, because everything I just told Ray about oral steroids being a safer option isn't 100% true.
[04:17] And when Ray started searching online, he was quickly getting suspicious. The day after we saw Ray when he took his first dose, he was up until midnight having a deep conversation with ChatGPT. So I had to do my best at convincing him, and no, it worked. It worked.
[04:32] But that has me a little bit concerned because it's only day one and he's already asking some questions. We're going to have to do some more stuff to actually convince him that it's working. So on day three, I introduced Ray to a new training plan that I've designed
[04:44] to mimic the results you get from taking steroids. Have you ever noticed how a lot of guys on the juice have really big, unnatural looking traps and shoulders? Well, when you take steroids, testosterone latches onto androgen receptors in your muscles. But some muscles, like your
[04:59] traps and delts, are believed to have more of these receptors than other muscles do, making them more likely to grow when you hop on the juice. So, to give Ray more of that enhanced look, but naturally, I'm using some of the most effective exercises for growing
[05:13] these muscles. Now we'll see just how well these exercises help Ray achieve the jack low-key's after, but just changing a few exercises isn't going to be enough. Because Ray's already
[05:28] been training for years, he's clearly an intermediate, which should make muscle growth a lot slower than if he was a beginner. But after hearing more about Ray's current training plan, I did spot three big mistakes I think are holding him back. First, Ray is training
[05:42] with a typical bro split where he trains each muscle hard but just once a week. Now while this approach can work research suggests you can get roughly 30% faster gains if you simply go from training the muscle once per week to twice per week. So I'm changing his workout routine to an
[05:59] upper lower split with a fifth accessory day. But my second adjustment explains why Ray claims he kept getting stronger but his muscles weren't actually getting any bigger. You're performing this as like a powerlifter and there is like a lot of momentum and like the hips come off the bench
[06:14] so even though you're lifting heavy weight a lot of that lift comes from the momentum not actually like tension on the chest. By lightening the weight and controlling each rep we're forcing the target muscles to actually do the work getting him more from less and while nobody likes having
[06:28] to lift lighter Ray was actually willing to make every single change that I proposed. I feel like pumped up way more. Yeah, that's what I mean, man. And finally, Ray was making what I think is the biggest mistake holding people back.
[06:41] Because just this year, researchers put 30 trained lifters through the same workout program, but split them into three nutrition groups. One followed a tracked high-protein diet at maintenance calories.
[06:54] Another followed the same diet, but in a slight calorie deficit. While the third continued training but didn track their nutrition at all After 10 weeks both of the groups tracking their nutrition gained over 2 pounds of lean mass while losing fat where the group who didn track didn see any meaningful change in either direction
[07:13] which is why Ray will track everything using our bit with science app, eating in a slight deficit of 2,300 calories per day to burn fat, while eating at least 120 grams of protein to fuel muscle growth at the same time.
[07:31] test because I do feel like some fire in me. I always do training. And despite Ray's early suspicions, he was absolutely crushing it through his first week, pushing hard on all of his workouts and tracking as he knew. I feel like I'm a little more cut and maybe just look a bit more color.
[07:47] But I still had one major problem to solve. You see, when I gave Ray his starting body fat on day one, the body fat percentage is 19.4%. Oh no way. Wow. You don't sound too happy right now.
[08:00] Actually, I thought like after 90 days I'll be under 10, but now I didn't hear about it, probably not. Maybe like 13%. But when he spoke to my producer on day one, he had some unrealistic expectations as to how his weight would change throughout the process.
[08:13] I'm hoping, you know, much more fat you can get. I'm hoping to be around like 180, 190 would be nice. 190? Good luck, man. Thank you. Which sounds great, except Ray currently weighs 156 pounds. And to go from almost 20% body fat down to 12%, he's definitely going to have to lose weight.
[08:29] In fact, for him to end up at 180 pounds and 12% body fat, he would need to gain roughly 30 pounds of muscle while losing fat at the same time. Now on real steroids, you can actually gain muscle so fast that even though you're losing
[08:42] fat, the scale is going up. But for a natural, trained lifter like Ray, that's going to be virtually impossible, which is a big problem for my plan. So on day 10, I enlisted our head engineer to create a special kind of scale for Ray.
[08:55] This is a $20 scale from Amazon, but with a little bit of rewiring, we can tell exactly how much he weighs, and we can control exactly what weight we want him to see.
[09:09] The plan is simple. Every week, we increase the number of weights sawed by about one pound. So even if he's actually losing weight, he'd think the steroids are helping him build muscle so fast that his weight is staying the same or even going up.
[09:21] And the best part is, we still get Ray's real weight behind the scenes. And so his Build With Science app can adjust his calories based on his actual progress, while Ray had no idea what was actually happening.
[09:33] Alright, so right now I'm at 161.4 pounds. Put me over 200 pounds. I'm sick of being victim-rate. Oh, buddy! 212 pounds, let's go!
[09:45] Look at this. You'll be asking how much I weigh, that's what I'm telling them. 211.7. Sweet, it works. It works so well that I want one for my own house. This is going to connect your Bluetooth to your Bill's house. Oh wow.
[09:57] Should I make it easier, man? Yeah, I don't know what I'm preaching about. Let me know how you like it, if it makes it easier. Guilty as I feel about this even, Ray, I do have to remind myself of the mission at hand. Plus, if Ray fully believes he's taken the real thing, and he's convinced his body is actually responding to it,
[10:12] you might actually see steroid-like results. That's because almost everything we're doing in this experiment has actually been done one time before. You see, back in 1972, researchers recruited well-trained college athletes.
[10:25] And for the first eight weeks, the researchers just put them on a standardized training program and tracked their progress. And during this time, their bench improved by an average of 10 pounds, while their squat improved by 6 pounds.
[10:37] But for the next four weeks, they were given the secret sauce, a placebo that they were told was an approved steroid. And within these four weeks, their bench increased by almost 30 pounds and their squat by 40 pounds.
[10:50] That's three to seven times greater gains in half the time, even after the initial gains were made. Now, we'll see what happens with Ray, but so far, it sounds like the placebo effect is definitely kicking in. And not just in the gym.
[11:03] Even, like, the other day, I was, like, at the butcher shop. The guy, like, put all the meat in a bag and, like, put it in, like, a container for me. It, like, slipped off the counter and fell. I quickly went and grabbed it before it took the ground away.
[11:15] And everybody was like, holy, you're so fast, you're like Spider-Man. Holly, you are so fast, you are like Spider-Man. I mean, it's working. But just as I thought we were in the clear, we hit another problem. When we looked at race scale data, we quickly realized someone else was also using the scale,
[11:30] which doubled the chance our scale manipulations could be noticed. And even worse, three weeks into the experiment... Oh my god, guys, we have completely lost the feed. we haven't had a single weigh-in in the past four days, which means we have to get him back here
[11:45] without him realizing what's going on. Fortunately, I did have one good excuse to bring Ray back, as we were just about to hit his 30-day mark, which is when I told him we'd be upping his dose from one pill every other day to one pill daily. But here's the plan, invite Ray back to the studio
[12:00] and tell him our team needs to replace the battery. Downstairs, we're doing a 30-minute workout, okay? I don't know what's wrong with this, but you gotta fix it, okay? Okay, so I started with Jeremy. This would be my man. I haven't pulled this ray yet.
[12:12] With the stuff we're taking, I feel like it's giving me more power, giving me more energy. Let's see if we can get this. Now I get why steroids is illegal in sports.
[12:24] Should I go heavier? What do you think? Up to here. Whatever you do, you'll be allowed to shit.
[12:37] It gives you a different type of energy. It gives you like better performance. Your recovery is much better. You can work out seven days a week. I don't think I'd be like that if I wasn't on steroids. I feel like I can do anything. I feel like I can fly.
[12:50] No pressure. Come on, wish you the best. Alright, KD, we got the scale for you.
[13:02] From now on, just weigh yourself on this scale. this scale okay yeah now as for a raised new dose i ordered your next batch of stuff
[13:14] you seem a little concerned i don't know i'm not concerned um i feel like the days i do take it yeah i feel like those days i have like the more energy than the days i don't take it well now you have one every day every day that's sweet well while the scale was not on the clear what i didn't realize is i had already made the biggest mistake of our experiment
[13:30] remember how i said we were getting raised blood tests on day one well because of a scheduling with the lab we couldn't actually get them in until two weeks into the experiment which created a big problem this is disappointing so this is my test for some reason this is where i'm at
[13:47] this is the low hi honestly i thought after a month of doing steroids my test would be in like 900 i don't know maybe i felt like a little fatigued or anything or something like that but I never had any problems below the waist.
[14:01] My s*** always got up. It was always very hard. Never had a problem not getting up. Never had a problem not being able to rap Never had a problem of not being able to go more than once My ex just can touch the fire my skill works fine And this is where a lot of guys like Ray get discouraged
[14:17] They train for years, they don't see the results they want, they go get a blood test, and they see that they're not at the high end of normal, and they assume testosterone is the reason they're stuck. But as long as you're within the normal range, being slightly higher or lower doesn't actually seem to make a huge difference for muscle growth.
[14:33] In fact, many pro-natural bodybuilders have testosterone levels that are completely average or even slightly below. Even many of our app members who think their hormones are a problem are proven wrong as soon as we help them dial in their training and nutrition.
[14:46] But that said, if you do hop on real steroids, your testosterone is actually pushed well above the natural range. And because Ray believes he's already been on them, his blood test results really got in his head.
[14:58] Some days, like today, you know, you see s*** like this. Her spalshroom was literally just kind of being motivated to, you know, makes me feel like this s*** is not working and this was trying to pull in on us. Now I tried to tell Ray it was just one test and that it was still too early for the pills to fully kick in.
[15:13] It takes time for that to be reflected in the blood test. But at this point, I know the experiment is on thin ice. And if I want Ray to keep believing this was working, I needed something big to show him on day 50, when it was time for his second DEXA scan.
[15:26] Now the DEXA results here. On day one, your body fat percentage was 19.4%. Today, it's at 14.7%. Dude, now, your lean mass, it went up 8.7 pounds.
[15:46] 8.7 pounds. To show how insane that is, this is the amount of lean mass a natural lifter can typically gain in just 50 days. or even crazier, is this is what subjects on a starting dose of steroids typically gain over the same time period.
[16:25] And while there is a chance Ray could be pulling his own shirt on me, I did find something that helped explain what we're seeing. Ray explained that about a month before we reached out to me, he actually just had his
[16:38] appendage removed, which meant he had to take about 4 weeks completely off the gym. And most research suggests you can regain muscle in roughly half the time it took to lose it, which likely explains at least half of the rematch gains Ray was able to gain.
[16:53] And even then, Ray's progress is still remarkable, especially given how much fat he lost at the same time. But now that most of his muscle regain should be accounted for, we should hopefully be able to see the true effect of Ray's placebo in the second half of our experiment.
[17:08] You wanna make me push harder? You wanna make me stick to my diet and be even more on top of my diet? And maybe I'll even cut out that one cheat day or something? But even though Ray's excited, I'm nervous. Because at the end of the experiment, I'll be asking him to make a choice.
[17:22] training naturally or go down the path he initially wanted. That is the exact choice I'm going to give him, which gives me just 50 more days to convince Ray to stay mad at it. My energy's been really good. I'm still pushing just like I was doing before. I actually
[17:38] feel like maybe it's as far as someone's actually just checking him out. With Ray more motivated than ever coming out of our check-in, I was confident he was going to crush his final stretch in this journey. Well, I've been dieting, dieting pretty good, finding out new meals, finding out healthier foods to eat.
[17:54] But, as impressive as race progress has been through the first 50 days, dating to 12% body fat is not going to be easy. In fact, my team and I recently analyzed over 9,000 DEXA scans from American men.
[18:07] And out of all those people, how many do you think were below 12% body fat? The correct answer is one. The physique Ray is chasing would put him in the top 0.1% of the population. In fact, at 14.7% body fat, Ray is already in the top 2% of leaners.
[18:24] But the thing is, when you scroll social media, the physiques that should be 1 in 10,000 start to feel normal. I go on Instagram and everybody used to be like under 10% body fat and then that kind of like makes me feel like I still have a lot of work to do and I'm not there yet.
[18:38] and even gets in my head too. I mean, when I'm on social media and I see these amazing shredded physiques, I compare it to myself, and I can often feel disappointed about where I'm at and my progress. For someone like Ray, who has spent years seeing bodies like that everywhere,
[18:52] and then nowadays sees more and more people openly talking about and glamorizing steroids without always showing the risks, I can understand why he started thinking that maybe that's what he's missing. But once you take steroids, if you come off, your natural testosterone often drops,
[19:07] which can lead to fatigue, recovery issues, and of course, libido issues, which I bet would be a big scare for Ray. My heart's just been testified. My c**k is fine. And the scary thing is, for some people, their natural testosterone production doesn't ever fully bounce back.
[19:22] And the real danger is that steroids seem to have a dose-response relationship with muscle gain, meaning the more you take, the more muscle you can gain, which, for certain personality types, can become a dangerous trap. Because as steroid use increases, so do the risks.
[19:36] Not only does hair loss, acne, and fertility issues become more likely, but so does your risk of heart failure. That's because steroids don't just grow your muscles, they actually grow your heart too, and that can create all sorts of issues.
[19:48] In fact, in a recent autopsy report of bodybuilders who died prematurely, the average age of death was just 36 years old. Their heart weight was 74% heavier than the average man's.
[20:00] And I'm hoping this transformation can convince Ray, who's better off never taking those It also makes me wonder if Ray does manage to hit his 12% goal, will he actually be satisfied?
[20:12] And how will he respond when I have to tell him the truth? Fortunately, in the final week of Ray's program, I got an invitation to join Ray and his family for dinner,
[20:24] which would be my best chance to try and figure out how he might react when it's time for me to come clean. Hey, Jeremy. What up, man? Nice to see you again. Nice to see you too, dude. How are you? Really, I'm amazed with the progress we see.
[20:39] He transformed totally, not only him. I got the benefit too. And given that Ray's mom was tracking her weight using our special scale, she had actually made even more progress than she thought.
[20:51] Hoping to get to 145, but I never could. Always was 150 above. But now, when he told me, Mom, this is so much you do. You should change this to this.
[21:03] and I did some training and I see within less than a month. I've worked with a lot of people and he's definitely one of, it not the most disciplined person that I worked with Yeah this is where all the transformation happened This past like month has been a little hard with like dieting And sometimes I felt like I still had a lot of fat
[21:23] But, I mean, I'm still pushing. I'm still working out. My, like, maximum is ongoing on more. Like I said, I didn't really track my calories or proteins and stuff like that. After working with you and using your app, that's, like, very helpful, too, by the way, to track all your food.
[21:37] I've learned that, like, 80% is into the diet. But you haven't told her that you're taking care of her? No. At one point she was a little skeptical about it and asked Unified Life. So she saw I was making pretty big progress.
[21:50] I just kind of denied it. Me and her, we watch YouTube together. We watch your videos together. It's gonna happen on YouTube. I'll tell her when the videos come out. So do you guys have a lot of family here?
[22:04] Normal family here, just us. So most of your family is in Europe right now? Yeah, where exactly? We didn't know. When was the last time that you saw them? In 2010. That long ago? Yeah.
[22:16] What's the reason that you've never gone back? It's just like, pretty expensive to go back. Yeah. And secretly after doing it to show my appreciation for Ray's hard work and his mom for welcoming me with open arms, I wanted to surprise them with a trip back to see their family for the
[22:30] first time in over 10 years. This was her. This is for you guys. Oh wow. Oh my god. Oh my god, thank you so much! That's amazing. Thank you so much.
[22:42] You guys honestly deserve it. And I can tell. Thank you. Oh, that's amazing. Thank you so much. I'm gonna be honest guys, my perception of Ray, it has completely changed throughout this experiment.
[22:55] He's a genuine dude and I've actually grown a bond to him. And my biggest fear is that when I tell him on the final day that I've been deceiving him this whole time, that friendship is just going to be completely shattered. And with Day 100 officially here, it's time to see how far he's come before revealing the truth behind our experiment.
[23:13] Starting with his strength, where he went from benching 3 reps at 185 pounds on Day 1, all the way up to 8 clean reps with the same weight.
[23:25] Meanwhile, his squats with the same weight jumped from 6 reps up to 10. His pull-ups, which were already an impressive 16 reps on Day 1, climbed to 20 clean reps. As per Ray's blood work, his testosterone actually increased by 22%, which could be
[23:42] just day to day fluctuation or a result of his improved diet, rather than the placebo actually doing the magic. Which just leaves our most important question. Did Ray reach his goal of 12% body fat? And how will he respond when I have to tell him the truth?
[23:56] Before I tell you the result, can I see what's under the shirt? Yeah, yeah, okay. Let me see you. Let me see your glass on. Oh ho ho ho. Damn, dude. What? Look at this. So that's what your mom was talking about when she said the abs are just...
[24:11] Oh, damn. Yo. Damn, dude. Let's go. 19.4% body fat on day one. And in 100 days, your body fat is 11.9%.
[24:28] All right. Okay. All right. We got this. I thought I was gonna like 10-11 but I'm like 11.5% dude. Dude, do you know how rare that is?
[24:43] Do you know how rare that is? That's actually like 0.1%. In the second half of our experiment, Ray's muscle gains definitely did slow down compared to the first half.
[24:55] But because Ray was already under 15% body fat by day 50, it makes building muscle while losing fat far less likely. So the fact that you were still able to build some muscle at this stage is extremely impressive. And so if you're feeling stuck right now and you want to try the personalized
[25:10] training and nutrition plan that's not just work for Ray, that's thousands of our app members, then you can try two weeks of it completely free by scanning this QR code or heading to BuiltWithScience.com. But for now, it's time for you to come clean with Ray. Before you go, I do have
[25:25] one thing I want to show you. Do you remember that contract that you signed back on day one? I want you to read all of this out loud. The participant understands and agrees that they may receive an inactive placebo.
[25:40] The participant further understands and agrees that no anabolic steroids, no illegal substances, no control substances, and no prescription performance enhancing drugs will be provided by the producer-trainer company.
[25:54] So, what, I wasn't, this wasn't steroids? I did this naturally? The pills that you've been taking? Yeah. This is flour. No way.
[26:06] What? Are you f***ing kidding me? Are you serious? No way. Everything has been all you. Everything has been all you, 100% natural. Just the power of your mind, and literally this takes in your terrain nutrition.
[26:20] Wow. Wow. That's insane. I just floured it. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, that's surprising. That's interesting. How do you think your mom is doing?
[26:33] Oh, I'm going to have to break this news to my mom one day. I mean, that one day was going to be one of those videos I was so wrong. If you're watching right now, I hope you're happy and I hope you're proud of everything that you've done naturally.
[26:46] So when I told you the 11.9%, you didn't seem too happy. It seemed like you were eager for more. And so I do want to put your word to the test. Okay. and I have one more thing to show you. Alright.
[26:59] These are real steroids. If you still really want to take steroids, I'm going to try my best to find a professional who can help you do that as safely as possible. There's obviously a full risk, not something I recommend, but the option is there for you. Or, you can continue taking my
[27:17] flower pills and churning naturally. So, there's two options and ultimately the choice is yours. What's it gonna be?
[27:29] I mean, this whole time I thought I was on steroids. Such a surprise that I got to where I wanted without steroids. So I'm not sure I... I'm scared of the side effects. I don't want to decrease my lifespan.
[27:42] I want to be healthy. I want to live long. I think I'll pass on the steroids. Stick with your flowers. Final decision? Yeah, yeah, I mean... Let's go, man! Let's go! Music's in my ears! I'm so proud of you man.
[27:55] Thank you. You're literally the frickin' example of what people can accomplish if they just download and train nutrition and you don't need this stuff. What we did, I can be proud of this video. I'll never be like having a guilty feeling about it. So, it's amazing.
[28:07] I appreciate you so much for everything you've taught me. You changed my life. You changed my thinking. You changed my mentality, you know? That's amazing. Thank you. I'm sorry.
[28:19] I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the DVDs. Alright. Peace.